Established in 1993
A Country Shop located south of Iowa City, featuring cottage rugs, country decor, antiques and farmhouse pantry foods.

Witner At The Rug Cottage

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

My Love Affair with Vintage Travel Trailers

Many of you know that I have a thing for vintage travel trailers.

I can't quite explain how this came to be, except that I love vintage stuff and I love to camp, so it was kind of the marriage of the two.

I found & decorated my first travel long before I knew it was actually the new popular thing... especially out west.

I knew I wasn't crazy when I found others like me on the Internet and especially "The Sisters on the Fly" camping club.

I'll try to post some of my trailers on this post soon. I have my own vintage trailer park thanks to a very understanding husband. Unfortunately this year, I haven't' even got into the trailers to see how they weathered the winter. Hopefully there will be no surprises.

This is a picture of myself and my sister in 1969 by the pickup camper we use to camp in with my parents. We took trips all over the US including Canada and Alaska in that camper. What great memories. I never had been to an amusement park until I was in college, but I've been to almost every National Park and battle field in this great country. What a gift my parents gave us. Our travel wasn't fancy. Many times we just camped along the road and we always ate our meals in the camper.

History of The Rug Cottage & Barntiques

Rug Cottage & Barntiques Antique MallWelcome to The Rug Cottage & Barntiques Antique Mall Blog site.I consider myself truly blessed to have this opportunity to share with you my story of how The Rug Cottage came to be.

My sweetheart of almost 25 years (John) and I purchased an acreage out side of Iowa City. It sits on one of highest points in Johnson county with a Million Dollar view.

After several years we restored the old Victorian house on the property. I worked as a Microbiologist for the University of Iowa and my husband John had his rental propery and painting business at the time.

After the death of our first child due to a heart condition, I decided to be a stay at home mom when our son Nicholas was born in 1990. We were blessed again in 1992 when our daughter Jessica was born. We were blessed again years later with 2 more sons, Nathan and Nolan.

I loved decorating our old Victorian house and being home with my 2 wonderful babies. Growing up my Grandmother had hooked rugs in her Parlor. I wanted that look for our newly added family room and I set out on the adventure of finding that style of rug.

To my surprise it wasn't that easy. I looked everywhere. Rugs were mainly sold in carpet and furnture stores at the time and if you didn't have what they offered on the rack, you were out of luck.

Finally after much searching I did find they style of rugs I was looking for, but now one in area sold them. I tried to convince the company that I could sell their rugs and they gave me a shot.

John fixed up an old grainery shed on our acreage and The Rug Cottage was born. We opened our door in April of 1993 with a few rugs, a few gift items and a hope that someone would stop by now and then. Our crudely hand painted sign on the back of the building must have been noticed by tourists on their way to Kalona, because the next thing we knew we had a thriving little business.

Since then we've added on the the little shed 3 times to make a much larger store and a few years ago we added Barntiques Antique Mall in our old barn.. We have become know for our wonderful friendly atmosphere and our great selection of unique merhcandise.